Project Management Exam 1

You are building your project schedule. You have the tasks in the right sequence. What is the next step you should take?

Add the time that you estimate for each task.

After the plan is approved and project work begins, Tara's boss is not happy about a project delay for an upgrade. The vendor thought Tara's team would do the upgrade, and Tara thought the vendor would do it. What was missed in this situation?

An assumption was not identified.

Your coworker has to develop a cost estimate but is unsure which is the best one based on a bell curve of costs for past projects. What is a general practice for choosing the best estimate?

Choose a point halfway between the average and worst-case values.

Banton is defining his project deliverables. Which statement describes what a project deliverable is?

Deliverables are the results that the project delivers and help define the project scope.

Your boss is asking you to take on a reengineering project. The company hasn't run reengineering projects before, but has hired several project managers with reengineering experience. Which technique is best to use in this situation to estimate time and cost?

Delphi technique

A project that you manage is behind schedule. You have identified an approach that would get the project back on track, but it would require you to break one of your organization's policies. What is the best course of action?

Determine if the rule is one that can be broken and come up with an alternative plan of action if your approach doesn't work.

Rosanne's boss asks her to manage a project. Which question requires understanding of objectives, requirements, deliverables, and success criteria to answer?

How will you know when you are done?

Kendra has a project team of varying skills and experience. Since the WBS task names are short and may not be enough for the team members to know what to do, what should Kendra do?

Kendra should have her team leaders create work package documents.

Sakait has done some extra work to appease a client. Now the client is asking her to do one more task, which is significant and not part of project scope. What should Sakait do?

Sakait should tell the client the task is not within scope and add the task using the change control process.

Izzy has finished identifying risks for her big project, but is unsure how to account for unknown risks from a time and cost perspective. What is the general practice most companies use for projects?

Set aside a percentage of the budget and project duration based on past projects. If you don't have past experience, use 15%.

The change review board can't get through all the change requests that are submitted. They want to focus on requests with significant impact. What process change would you propose to allow the review board to focus on significant changes?

Set thresholds so you or team leads can decide what to do with small change requests.

Ravi took on a system implementation project that he estimated would take six months to complete, but the work keeps continuing. What is the likely cause?

The project is not clearly defined.

Rudolph, the project manager, is trying to obtain customer approval of project deliverables. It is taking longer than he anticipated because the customer wants to discuss the results. What is the most likely reason for these delays?

The success criteria aren't clear and quantifiable.

Which factor is a test you can use to determine whether you have broken down the work to the right level?

The work package is between 8 and 80 hours to complete.

You are considering a vendor to help with a project. You are confident about how much work and time is needed, but you want the vendor to accept the risk. Which type of contract would you likely use?

a fixed-price contract

You are managing a project that is implementing a new financial system. You need to include some of the finance department's resources on the team. Which stakeholder should you approach?

a functional or line manager

James is managing a project in which he has some authority to make decisions. In which type of organizational structure is James most likely managing this project?

a matrix organization

Your boss has asked you to be the project manager of an approved software implementation project. Which project document identifies your authority and responsibilities?

a project charter

Krisha is gathering information on her stakeholders, such as department names, factors that motivate them, who they listen to, and their contributions on the project. What is this document called?

a stakeholder analysis

What are the components that differentiate a project from operational work?

a unique goal, a temporary endeavor, and usually a budget

Which of the following skills is NOT crucial for a project manager to possess?

accounting

You have created a risk management plan for your project. Which type of response would you use if the scope was changed to remove a risky section of the project?

avoidance

Project objectives help you flesh out a project by _____.

defining project scope

Which technique would you most likely use to gather valid requirements and get buy-in from various departments?

focus groups

Mariko has created a work breakdown structure diagram to show work broken down into manageable pieces. Which choice is NOT a reason for creating the WBS?

identifying deliverables

Your team has identified possible strategies for a project. The team is now evaluating them using a decision matrix. What is the purpose of weighting the objectives?

identifying the importance of each objective

Your client has asked for a project that will fix productivity concerns with the customer service department. After asking "why" several times, you are able to determine the cause and create a _____.

problem statement

Madhukant's project includes testing software functions. Which part of the quality management plan would address the processes that will be used to ensure the software is meeting the standards?

quality assurance plan

Turkan is developing a resource management plan for his project. Which part of this plan articulates who makes decisions, who performs work, and who needs to receive status on the project?

responsibility matrix

What is NOT a required part of creating a project schedule?

set a deadline for the project

As part of the project definition, Bisa identifies risks for the project. What is the purpose of doing this during project initiation?

so management can decide whether the risks are serious enough to warrant denying the project

You are hiring a new project manager to take over a project with several teams that often disagree on what they are supposed to do. Which competency would you feel is most important in a candidate for this situation?

strong leadership skills

George is building his work breakdown structure (WBS) to organize and distribute the project work to various departments. Which type of tasks would he use to represent a department's responsibility?

summary tasks

When would you create a work package document that describes the work to be done in explicit detail?

the assigned resource is inexperienced

Mei has obtained a graph showing duration data for past projects that follows a normal distribution. Which duration estimate provides the best chance for a project being selected and completed successfully?

the average of the worst-case value and the 50% probability value on the normal distribution

Chloe is developing her risk management plan and wants to make sure that she can get early warning that a risk might occur. What is the key item she should document in her risk information forms?

the events that might trigger the risk

Several stakeholders for a project disagree on the priorities of many project objectives. Who would you ask first for help resolving this issue?

the project sponsor

The IT department says that there are several products that do what the project needs. What is the most important thing that will help you choose the right product?

understanding your project needs

The development team has encountered a problem with a software feature. They need to handle this problem quickly, but they can't make a face-to-face brainstorming session because they aren't local. Which alternative solution is best?

videoconferencing

Your client has just asked you to make changes to some features in the project. What would you do first?

Ask the client to document and submit a change request form.

Tiko and Camille's boss has a project in which the solution is a bit unclear. Tiko wants to use a waterfall approach and Camille wants to use the Agile approach. Which approach is best and why?

Agile is best because it delivers partial solutions at regular intervals.

Raghbir has done all the project planning and is ready to obtain stakeholders' approval. However, the stakeholders are not colocated. What is the best possible approach for getting their approval?

Have a video conference with all stakeholders.

The sponsor of Project T5 assigned you as the project manager, and the project has already been approved. What is the first thing you need to do as the project manager?

Review what has been done and complete any tasks not addressed.

The boss has asked you to research project management tools that will help with building and planning tasks on a timeline. Which type of tool would you most likely consider?

a scheduling program

Your organization runs numerous projects and wants to choose the most appropriate resources for each project team. Which of the following is the best tool for identifying project resources?

enterprise project management software

During which process group does the project manager orient team members to the project and expectations?

executing

Candace is a new project manager and has asked for your help with the project budget. Which type of cost typically represents the largest portion of a project budget?

labor

Ramesh is creating objectives for his project. Which SMART step will help him identify actual progress?

measurable

Your project seems to be going off track, so you take action to resolve the problem. In which project management process group are you working?

monitoring and controlling

One risk to your schedule is that a hard drive with customized software fails and you lose the work that was done. Resources on the project team regularly back up their work so they can resume work quickly after a hard drive failure. What type of risk management strategy do backups represent?

risk mitigation

Jivan is preparing an agenda for the project plan approval meeting. Which item should she not include in her agenda?

schedule the project definition meeting

Which organizational factor would you use when having to make a difficult decision?

the organization's mission

Linde has a tight budget for her project. She needs to potentially seek outside sources. Which plan should she consult to understand the products or services that are available?

the procurement plan

Angela is about to start the project plan for a financial system migration project. What information should she identify first because it drives most of the plan?

the work that must be done

You are the project manager for a healthcare system implementation project. The sponsor has asked you to create a project definition. What will the sponsor use this document for?

to decide whether to approve the project

Why is it important to document the project scope?

to remind stakeholders what they agreed to and to prevent scope creep